Zbogar has announced that Slovenia would respond to Rehn`s proposal in time, but there are still no details.
Slovenia has responded to the latest proposal of European Union expansion commissioner Olli Rehn on Monday, Slovene STA agency reports Tuesday, stating that the Slovene Ministry of Foreign Affairs has confirmed the news. There are no other details.
Slovene [...]

Khodorkovsky appeared in court on Tuesday for the first day of a new trial that could keep him in prison for a further 22 years.
Lawyers for jailed Russian oil oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky said on Tuesday they would call Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as a witness to fight embezzlement charges they say are politically motivated.
Khodorkovsky, a [...]

Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn also said Croatia could still wrap up entry talks with the EU this year.
The European Union may decide this year on offering visa-free travel to citizens of some Western Balkan countries and on opening membership talks with Macedonia, the EU’s enlargement chief said on Tuesday.
Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn also said Croatia [...]

Medvedev said neither Russia nor the United States can tolerate `drift and indifference` in their relationship.
Russia and the United States should rebuild their relations and work together on key global issues, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said in an article on Tuesday in the Washington Post.
Medvedev said neither Russia nor the United States can tolerate “drift [...]

PODGORICA, Montenegro – Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic’s coalition won an absolute majority in Sunday’s snap parliamentary elections, the Central Electoral Commission announced on Monday (March 30th).
For a European Montenegro won 51.09% of the vote, translating to 48 of the 81 seats in parliament. The opposition Socialist People’s Party was second with 17.99% and 16 seats, [...]

WASHINGTON, United States – As required, all NATO member states sent the US State Department their ratified documents regarding Croatia and Albania’s entry into the Alliance, NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer confirmed on Monday (March 30th).
Portugal and Slovenia were the last two countries to comply. De Hoop Scheffer is sending a formal letter of [...]

ATHENS, Greece – Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis has rejected an initiative by Macedonian counterpart Antonio Milososki aimed at improving strained relations between the two neighbours, media reported on Monday (March 30th).
In a letter to Bakoyannis on March 13th, Milososki suggested that the two countries should overcome their differences by signing a joint declaration of friendship [...]

VIENNA, Austria – Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic said on Monday (March 30th) he does not expect his country’s Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) with the EU to be implemented any time soon. It hinges on arresting war crimes fugitive Ratko Mladic.
At a meeting with Austrian counterpart Michael Spindelegger in Vienna, Jeremic said Serbia’s EU [...]

PRISTINA, Kosovo – EULEX has taken over an organ trafficking case that allegedly victimised Serbs in 1999, local media reported on Tuesday (March 31st). EULEX officials said they have received a file from Serb judicial authorities, in which prosecutors argue that the Kosovo Liberation Army removed the

SARAJEVO, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) – The issuing of biometric passports will begin on December 31st, BiH’s Agency for Identification Documents, Registers and Data Exchange announced on Monday (March 30th).
A German company won the bid for providing the passports and signed a contract with the government last month. The passports will contain a data chip [...]

MADRID, Spain – A Spanish court has released on bail Remzi Kartal, a former lawmaker from Turkey’s disbanded Democracy Party and suspected former commander of the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), Turkish media reported on Monday (March 30th).

LONDON, the United Kingdom – The international human rights watchdog Amnesty International accused Greek police of using excessive force and violating the rights of demonstrators in a report released on Monday (March 30th).

TIRANA, Albania – Running democratic elections that comply with international standards will be the best way for Albania to divide its historic and political past from the future, President Bamir Topi said on Monday (March 30th).

The Serbian government has done its utmost to enact necessary laws for Serbia to accede to the Schengen “white list” by the end of 2009, says the European Integration Office.
European Integration Office Director Milica Delevic told B92 that a special migration management strategy and three action plans were required to conclude this process.

Opinion polls in Macedonia suggest that Georgi Ivanov of the ruling VMRO-DPMNE will defeat his rival, Ljubomir Frckovski, in the country’s April 5 presidential elections.
A poll by the Democratic Institute found that 25 percent of voters would support Ivanov while 15 percent would vote for Frckoski.
The poll also found that 45 percent of citizens do [...]

Montenegro Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic has said that relations between Serbia and Montenegro are not satisfactory, but that there is scope for improving them.
He told B92 he was ready to work on establishing a quality relationship, provided Belgrade displayed the same willingness.
Djukanovic said cooperation between Serbia and Montenegro was considerably below realistic capacities, assessing that [...]

The European Commission as rejected a request by Bulgarian Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev to send European officials and diplomats to help the country’s state administration in its handling of EU funds.
In a letter, obtained by the Dnevnik newspaper, European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso told Stanishev that the new institutional mechanisms demanded by the Bulgarian [...]

Deputies in Serbia’s Parliament will meet for the first time today in their new chamber, the renovated Hall of the National Parliament in Nikola Pasic Square.
The chamber has been restored to its 1936 appearance.
President of Parliament Slavica Djukic-Dejanovic said deputies would first take part in a series of scheduled legislative votes before moving to the [...]

Trade Minister Slobodan Milosavljevic told a B92 TV talk show last night that a new solidarity tax which has caused public uproar could be introduced but is “only one of the measures considered”.
Prime Minister Mirko Cvetkovic, in the presence of International Monetary Fund representatives, announced that the government had decided to save money by taxing [...]

Kosovo’s Foreign Minister returned to Pristina optimistic about Kosovo’s future as an independent state, after attending meetings in New York and Prague.
Skender Hyseni represented Kosovo at the UN Security Council and the meeting of EU foreign diplomats in Prague, insisting that the Kosovo delegation be split from the United Nations Mission in Kosovo, UNMIK, headed [...]

The Albanian government has decided to further lower the cost of ID cards for different groups of the population, Minister of Interior Affairs Bujar Nishani said on Sunday.
“The price for pensioners will drop from 500 lek to 300 lek (from €4.20 to €2.50), while for students the price will decrease to 200 lek (€1.65),” the [...]

Romanian prosecutors on Monday indicted former economy minister Codrut Seres and former communications minister Zsolt Nagy for their involvement in “shady privatisation deals”.
Four other persons, including a Czech and a Turkish citizen, were also indicted. Prosecutors say that, between May 2005 and November 2006, the defendants were part of a criminal group that obtained [...]

Bulgaria’s Criminal Assets Forfeiture Commission on Tuesday imposed a ban on funds and property worth 828,000 leva (423,500 euro) owned by Alexander Tomov, a former deputy prime minister and now president of CSKA Sofia football club and executive director of Kremikovtzi steel plant.
Tomov is under investigation for embezzlement while working at Kremikovtzi and CSKA. The [...]

Romanian police have started an investigation in seven universities across the country, seizing graduation files that are suspected to have been forged, local press report.
According to police officers, the graduation documents were compiled in several weeks, covering subjects such as economy, oil and gas engineering. Some universities now under investigation have been undergoing liquidation since [...]

Two moderately-strong earthquakes, just over 12 hours apart, have shaken Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The tremors caused widespread alarm but did little damage.
The first tremor, at 15.27 on Monday, registered at 3.3 on the Richter scale and 5 on the Mercalli scale. The epicentre was some 8 kilometers east of Sarajevo.
The second, [...]

As the World Bank issues its latest report which forecasts the first global recession since World War II, the chill winds of economic slowdown are increasingly being felt in the Balkans.
The current unprecedented economic downturn has forced the World Bank to adjust its estimates and warn that the recession that could continue into 2011. The [...]

The member states and institutions of the European Union are keeping a close eye on the rich energy potential of the Balkan countries, Western officials have said, urging local leaders to undertake necessary reforms and unlock this sector for potential investments.
This message was delivered by several senior EU officials on Monday, at the opening of [...]

LJUBLJANA, Slovenia – Slovenian President Danilo Turk and Parliament Speaker Pavel Gantar signed on Friday (March 27th) the protocol for Croatia’s NATO accession, thus allowing the country to join the alliance at its April summit.
Slovenia was the last of the 26 NATO members to ratify the protocol. The move became possible as the non-parliamentary Slovenian [...]

ANKARA, Turkey – Six people, including opposition Great Union Party (BBP) leader Muhsin Yazicioglu, died in a helicopter crash in the southern province of Kahramanmaras, Interior Minister Besir Atalay said on Friday (March 27th). Yazicioglu’s helicopter crashed Wednesday in bad weather.
Searchers took two days to find the wreckage and found all six people aboard dead, [...]

PRAGUE, the Czech Republic — EU foreign ministers reaffirmed on Saturday (March 28th) the EU’s commitment to the Balkan countries’ integration process. The Balkans remain on track for joining the EU despite the economic downturn in Europe, the ministers said.

PARIS, France/NAIROBI, Kenya – Interpol said on Friday (March 27th) that a man arrested in Kenya on suspicion of war crimes in former Yugoslavia did not have the fingerprints of former Bosnian Serb commander Ratko Mladic.
Police in Kenya released the detainee on Friday, saying he was a Croatian national holding a valid passport and work [...]

SARAJEVO, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) – Austrian diplomat Valentin Inzko assumed the post of high representative in BiH on Thursday (March 26th), thus becoming the seventh since 1996. Inzko replaced Miroslav Lajcak, who left to become foreign minister of Slovakia.
The new high representative said he will follow the priorities set by the international community, namely [...]

BELGRADE Serbia – Hague war crimes tribunal (ICTY) Chief Prosecutor Serge Brammertz expressed his satisfaction with Serbia’s efforts to co-operate fully with the ICTY during his talks on Friday (March 27th) with War Crimes Prosecutor Vladimir Vukcevic.
The meeting between Brammertz and Vukcevic was “extremely successful and efficient”, said Bruno Vekaric, spokesman for the Serbian prosecutor. [...]

BRUSSELS, Belgium/ANKARA, Turkey – Turkish President Abdullah Gul said Friday (March 27th) Ankara is not against “any candidate” for the post of NATO secretary-general.
“Turkey does not have any particular objection [to Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen's candidacy],” media reports quoted Gul as saying in Brussels.

BELGRADE, Serbia – It is unlikely that Serbia can start EU accession talks this year, the head of the European Commission (EC) Delegation to Belgrade, Josep Lloveras, said on Friday (March 27th).
Overall, the process required to start those talks could last around 10-12 months, so it is practically impossible for the country to open membership [...]